


Someday the Sun

by gracelesso



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Recovering, Domestic Avengers, Domestic Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, M/M, Multi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-05-28 12:09:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15048710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracelesso/pseuds/gracelesso
Summary: It's a warm spring day, and the man who was definitely the Winter Soldier but is not yet certain he's Bucky Barnes forgets to close the front door of the house he now shares with Steve Rogers.Includes soft-focus flashbacks to the good old days, Billie Holiday, trauma recovery, blue paint, nosy Avenging neighbors, and Steven G Rogers' overstuffed heart.





	1. Improvements

**Author's Note:**

> This started life as [Home Improvements](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15020738/chapters/34820168) but is growing entirely out of my control.
> 
> The first two chapters are almost identical, except I've managed to get Recovery!Bucky back into a sensible third person, and tidied up a couple of snags for continuity.
> 
> Massive thanks and all credit to [ frenchly-anxious ](https://frenchly-anxious.tumblr.com) for a brilliant little addition to the original, which somehow spawned this increasingly ungainly beast.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The man who may yet be Bucky Barnes decides to do something for himself.

_No I don’t want to_ , he thinks, and hunches over, face in pillow. Dark there, and warm. _Cosy? I’m cosy._

He grins into the pillow, and in its quiet comfort he can admit to himself that the leaking of his eyes is more than just early morning wateriness, though he doesn’t know why he’s crying.

 _Don’t want to. Don’t have to. So warm. So -- snug? Nice with the sun baking my shoulder. So sleepy. ‘Mnot going to move. Steve can’t make me neither he’s too little an’ - oh._

Steve is Big Steve now. And this is too quiet to be Brooklyn. But it’s a good place. The man with no name knows this, somehow, deep in his core. A warm one too. Which place? Arm’s too hot for flesh in the sun. Metal. Now he remembers.

But this morning he stays calm. This is the Steve place, and the room Steve gave him to make his own. 

He remembers Steve three nights ago, over spicy eggs - _no Steve I don’t care if you think they sound gross, the eggs you cook are a goddamned waste of the work the chickens put into laying them_ \- asking if he’d feel more at home if he personalised the room.

For a supersoldier, Steve is very stupid. 

The room is secure now, the windows impossible to open from outside, a bolthole established in the crawlspace above the wardrobe in case of crisis, beautiful art deco fireplace not only blocked but rigged to stun intruders. 

Little, reliable weapons - lots of knives, he trusts knives - are within arm’s reach of every position in the small room, and the bed is invisible from the window. Not that he sleeps in it.

So yes, the room is personalised, he thinks, as he burrows still further into the nest of bedding on the floor. He lies there, his body almost relaxed, his mind loose and unfocused. Images drift across the pink-tinged backs of his eyelids in soft focus, and they’re kind. There are no Chairs, no guns. Muted laughter and a hand in his hair, a broad bare chest and some shushing noises. Then suddenly, he finds himself looking at a clear-edged picture, sharp and defined. 

The swaddled form of Little Steve is sitting in a stained, mushroom-colored wingback chair, his delicate face with its sickly flush the only part of him visible. He’s feverish and babbling. As hoarse as he sounds, the voice is still too big for the tiny head poking out from a pile of blankets, coats, towels even. 

“One day, Buck,” - and even as memory the name jars uncomfortably, one of many that no longer fit - “one day we’ll have big apartments and the walls won’t blister and we’ll be able to paint them. And I’ll decorate yours all fancy, and you can come do the ceilings at mine and keep an eye on me, make sure I’m not suffocating on paint fumes.”

He can hear the fluid in Little Steve’s lungs as he speaks. The fragile man’s eyes are glassy and delirious, his voice fading in and out of strength or maybe it’s the memory failing because soon he feels the warmth of the morning glazing over the arm, and hear a much bigger Steve striding across the hallway downstairs. The front door slams.

He gets into the shower, and thinks for a minute as the clean warm water that never runs out, never hits him hard and icy cold, winds across his shoulders. The good memories - the ones wrapped only in the natural cold of poorly-insulated apartments - come easier in the mornings, before he’s put himself together for the day. 

Little Steve was sick. But it feels like a good memory? No, not good. _What’s that thing, shit._ Nostalgia? Yes, he thinks, but then - _What’s the one that’s the opposite, then? Like forward nostalgia. But tingly._

It’s anticipation, the name for this feeling he’s lost. He’d associate the word with violence and tactics if he heard it, not with this light feeling that settles in his chest as he assigns himself a mission for the day.

_Gonna paint the room. Big Steve will like that._

Standing under the powerful shower, he plans quickly. Objectives: visit hardware store; purchase paint, brushes, a rolling thing. Steve. Make that two rolling things. Required equipment: clothing, footwear, canvas bag, house key, money. Ten minutes’ walking, familiar streets, no threat anticipated. Necessary interaction with salesclerk, slight risk, acceptable. Choosing paint - he feels a clench in his stomach. Choosing is still difficult. Physical threat analysis, null. Psychological risks can be overridden - use choice parameters other than personal preference. Risks neutralised. 

Satisfied with the plan, he gets out of the shower, squeezing the excess water from his hair and wrapping a towel around it. Looking in the mirror, he laughs at the face that stares back, cocooned in fluffy white. Bathrobes are on the list of Good Things, with hot showers, sleeping in, and spicy food.

-

Twenty minutes later he’s downstairs, wallet in metallic hand, looking for his jacket. The time between the mirror and now is lost, but nothing’s broken and he doesn’t have that hot, nauseous feeling that was inescapable in the first few months after the riverbank.

Happiness does this to him sometimes. He feels something good, and then loses the time afterward. It’s becoming rarer now though, the missing periods counted in minutes, not days, and he comes back from them calmly now.

He puts on the dark blue double-breasted jacket that had made Steve’s face go red and crumpled - _why?_ \- when he picked it out in the thrift store, and walks out of the door.


	2. Recognition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven Grant Rogers is paranoid and highly-strung and has far too many emotions when it comes to Bucky Barnes, but we knew that already.

The front door is ajar. Steve sees it as he’s unhooking the plastic bag from the handlebar of his motorbike, and his limbs tingle as adrenaline surges through his body. Instantly he breaks into a panicked run, hot sweet coffee slopping out of the cups in the bag and burning his hands. The bright April day feels sinister suddenly, as his soldier’s mind begins to scan the dappled, disorienting shadows. The streets are peaceful, but the silence is suddenly oppressive.

He spins through self-recrimination as he sprints toward the house, furious with himself for leaving Bucky sleeping, scared someone's found him, more terrified still that he's run. His pounding, rhythmic strides slap violently through the quiet as he bolts toward the dark green door and up the six steps. With no concern for his own safety he barges it fully open, mouth dry, heart pounding. He’s halfway to the kitchen when he catches a snatch of sound and a familiar chemical smell drifting down the stairs.

He pauses, breathing heavily. It almost sounded like… He hears it again. He’s certain now: someone is singing upstairs. The voice is strong and a little husky and Steve’s ragged breath catches in his chest as though he’s surfacing from a dive because this, this is the sound of summer evenings spent sketching on a fire escape, a sound from a simple time that is lost to him forever, and he sinks to the foot of the stairs, his throat swollen shut, because somewhere in the house, Bucky is singing. His fear dissipates, the adrenaline melting into something soft and warming.

The song conjures a smoky nightclub with a piano or maybe a small band, and suddenly Steve recalls a particular evening in London with a gorgeous singer performing this very song while glaring pointedly in the direction of their small posse. He recalls one of the men jabbing their Sergeant in the ribs, asking with a cartoonish leer why the woman on the stage seemed to be targeting him with her song, remembers exactly the self-deprecating shrug that undercut Bucky’s smirk with a note of genuine embarrassment. He’s reminded too of a faint surge of anger at the slander, friendly and otherwise, that his friend used to accept. Because Bucky was never the feckless womanising waster of the song, he’s always been one of the hardest workers Steve knows and one of the kindest men and as for womanising, well - there was an establishment behind the National Gallery that could have told some very different stories.

Steve finds himself startled abruptly back to the present as the voice breaks off with - was that a chuckle? - and then rips into a bloodcurdling rendition, complete with accent, of that confounded song from the woman in the fruit hat that Bucky’d been so very fond of in the months directly before the bombs had fallen on the harbor. The sound carrying down the stairs is - there’s no other word, really - gleeful. Steve groans instinctively, and the singing breaks off.

“Steve?” comes the voice, “Is that you?” Bucky sounds faintly embarrassed.

“Yeah, it’s me,” he calls back, a laugh in his voice. “What’re you up to?”

“Come see,” says Bucky’s voice, sounding more like his old self than he has since he came back. Steve stands, a little shakily, surprised at the crashing tide of emotions - relief and apprehension mingled - and walks up the stairs. The chemical smell is stronger now, and there’s a distinct breeze flowing through the house as he steps onto the landing. He turns and sees his Bucky framed in a doorway.

The man standing there isn’t the weapon he faced, and he isn’t the terrified, feral creature that broke into his bedroom a few months back, and he’s not the cocky young soldier who left Steve to fight for his country and never came home. He’s all of those things and more, but right now all that Steve sees, even with his long hair grazing his stubbled jaw and the sun flashing off his metal forearm, is his childhood best friend and a man he has loved in so many forms. He catches his wildly spiraling emotions, and looks at Bucky, who’s holding a long-handled paint roller and looking a little self-conscious under Steve's gaze.

Steve breaks his reverie with a laugh, and walks into Bucky’s room. For four months it has remained entirely impersonal, one spare set of clothes folded on the desk but otherwise bare and white. It isn’t white any longer. Random patches of wall are a shockingly vibrant blue, a color which summons images of flowers and oceans and early August evenings. Steve’s a little startled, but he feels his face crack into a grin.

“What do you think?” asks Bucky, with the slightly bashful cadence of someone who desperately wants approval but is secretly ashamed of the desire.

“Nice color,” replies Steve, the smile spreading throughout his body. “Not exactly finished though, is it?”

Bucky shrugs. “I only started an hour ago, and I don’t know what I’m doing. Never painted a room before, I don’t think.”

The words cut Steve deeply. Bucky had painted their old apartment nearly 75 years ago. Steve had been in the hospital with one of his last bouts of pneumonia. It was November of 1941 and within two years he'd be rendered absurdly, permanently healthy. Bucky had met him when he’d been cleared to leave the ward, buzzing with some strange, shy excitement. He’d insisted Steve sleep at the Barnes family home for a night, where Mrs Barnes had given him a full meal, far better than what he and Bucky could afford. By the time they returned to their apartment the next day, the paint fumes had dispersed and the walls were a clean flat white that made the little rooms seem twice the size.

He’d cried a little, he remembers. The oppressive, mouldering wallpaper had always bothered his artist’s heart as the damp it held bothered his lungs, but they didn’t have much money to spare for fresh paper. In that moment, walking into their apartment, walls like a fresh canvas, Steve had felt warm, cared-for and full of possibility.

Now isn’t the time to share that memory with Bucky - but a similar warmth floods his chest as he looks over at the man he once again shares a home with.

“What made you want to do it?”

“Dunno, Stevie. I just. This morning I woke up and it was sunny and I - I liked it, I think? I felt it. The warmth. Like I knew it was a good thing. And I wanted to do something. Needed a project. Remembered what you said over dinner the other night. That I should do something for myself. I guess I thought I’d try this.”

Steve’s chest feels swollen. This isn’t Bucky as he was, but this is a person making his own decisions and wanting things and being proactive. And the singing. That’s his Bucky, through and through. He chuckles a little, and looks at the floor.

“Buck, that’s great. That’s really great.” He pauses, hearing the thickness of emotion in his voice and noticing that the other man hasn’t flinched at Steve using the name he’s still not comfortable with. “You got a second roller?”

The pleased, shy grin flits across the dark-haired man’s face again as he proffers it. For a short while they paint together in silence, focused on the work. It’s initially a little strained, then eases into comfort. After a time, Steve hears Bucky begin to hum another familiar tune.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the first song i had in mind was [ this one ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yy5THitqPBw). the 1942 version by [Peggy Lee ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uTcw_A80Bo) is the most famous, and was featured in 1943 propaganda film _Stage Door Canteen_ , so he might have heard it before he shipped out. even if he hadn't, though, the original version of the song was released in 1936 and in 1941 [Lil Green](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oavQY5V0xpg) recorded a fantastic version that was commercially successful.
> 
> the second song is [Carmen Miranda](https://pastdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Carmen-Miranda-resize-2.jpg) performing [I Yi Yi](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBsf8DdRwpI) in _That Night In Rio_ (1941), and if you don't know it, be warned. it'll stick in your head for a month.
> 
> other snippets of information i spent too long researching:  
> \- in Steve's memory, he and the Howling Commandos are at the [Bouillabaisse Club](http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/london/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_9171000/9171130.stm) on New Compton Street in Soho. i have no idea whether it was the kind of venue that had live music, but in all other ways it's just perfect so we're going to pretend that it did.  
> \- the venue behind the National Gallery is the [Arts and Battledress Club](http://lgbthistoryuk.org/wiki/A%26B), which opened on Orange Street (within easy walking distance of the Bouillabaisse Club) in 1941. though it changed locations a couple of times, the A&B was still running in the mid-'70s, making it a landmark of London's queer history.


	3. Acknowledgments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam Wilson has a crisis of conscience, finds an open door, and forms a tentative alliance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heads up - this is a bit of a shift in tone and twice the length of the previous chapters together. i don't know how this chapter happened - i sat down hoping i could squeak out 600 lighthearted words and walked away with a heavy 4000.

It’s a beautiful morning in mid-May, and Sam Wilson is having a fit of conscience in a coffee shop. He’s just come from a meeting at the local VA, speaking to organisers about volunteering with them in the future. He misses the work, misses feeling like he’s helping ordinary people. After the meeting, he’d gone to sit in the back of a group counselling session and listened to an old man with bloodshot eyes and shaking hands talk about his time as a prisoner some forty years earlier. A young woman with hard features and shredded nails spoke flatly of the difficulties of building her own routine, and the overwhelming choices that civilian life offered.

At some stage in the woman’s monologue, Sam had slipped out of the room, said his farewells and walked to the coffee shop on the corner. An hour later, he’s still here, cursing himself and his life and that big dumb hero Steve Rogers as he inspects his guilt and anger. Because he is angry, he thinks. And he deserves to feel this guilt.

Steve had relocated to Brooklyn the second he had leads on the Artist Formerly Known as the Winter Soldier, and Sam had come with him, renting a much smaller apartment nearby even though Steve’s new place was more than big enough for two. He’d had a feeling Steve had a different roommate in mind. He didn’t resent Steve for uprooting him, not really. Being the Falcon made his old life - running, listening to people talk, running, watching movies, running, visiting his mother, running - seem grey and flat. It wasn’t that he wanted chaos, but excitement? Yeah. Sam Wilson wasn’t cut out for the quiet life after all. 

For a few months, he muses, he’d been living the dream. Steve had introduced him to Tony Stark, and the pair of them clicked, with their sharp comments and love of flying. Stark had him testing prototype wings within a week, and they’d settled on a design quickly. He’s been dropping by the lab a couple of times a week ever since, officially to check that Tony hasn’t got too carried away with modifications. They’ve developed a habit of taking their respective suits out together - it’s meant to be for research purposes, but they both know by now that it’s mostly for the hell of it. 

It was on one of these visits, as they were squabbling about whether Sam could get speakers installed in his wings - Tony adamant that only Iron Man gets a soundtrack to his dramatic entrances - that Steve called, incoherently gasping out something about _Bucky ---- woke up ---- corner ---- staring right at me, Sam, right AT me._

They’d eventually built up a picture from his choked-out words that Captain America had woken that morning to find the World’s Deadliest AssassinTM crouched in the corner of his bedroom clutching a knife, cheeks hollow and cracked lips drawn back in a feral snarl, wearing the festering remains of his black tac gear and a lilac running headband. And instead of panicking like a reasonable person, or anyone with an ounce of self-preservation instinct, Rogers had brought him water and a blueberry muffin, pointed out the en suite bathroom, and handed him a set of towels. Sam, with a nod from Tony, had volunteered to come over right away with better food for a malnourished supersoldier.

Only - the second he’d made eye contact with the man, he remembers with a shudder, he’d felt terror and fury flare up in his chest. He didn’t know Bucky Barnes, no matter how much he’s listened to Steve sing his praises. But he knew this face. This was the face of a man who ripped off his wing and threw him off a helicarrier to die. The face of a man who punched through the roof of a car and tore out the steering wheel from under Sam’s hands. He’d seen this face countless times: it still appears in the nightmares he doesn’t admit to having. It’s the face of a man who wouldn’t think twice about killing him. 

Sam had kept perfectly controlled, acknowledging the dead-eyed stare of his one-time would-be murderer and handing Steve the groceries, telling Steve to call him any time if he needed to talk, and fled. He’d barely made it down the steps before he found himself hyperventilating, the stress of the meeting and his fear of the one-armed killer overwhelming him.

Since then he’s avoided Steve’s house. He used to drop in unannounced as he jogged by, rapping on the door and yelling until Steve let him in. Not for months now. They still run together a few times a week, but Sam always makes his excuses and ducks off to his place immediately after. The last couple of weeks, Steve’s been talking about bringing - Sam can’t think of the Soldier as Bucky - Barnes for a run. 

The big man talks about Barnes constantly, and it grates on Sam, raking across his memories even as he smiles and encourages his friend. There’s something desperate in the way Rogers needs him to get better and it makes Sam sad, and something else there that hurts him, because the man is so blind to everything else when he talks about his Bucky. He doesn’t notice the tension in Sam’s hands as he forces himself to smile and sound pleased that the guy’s taking walks on his own, when what he wants to say is, Jesus, Steve, you’re letting that monster roam the streets off his leash? 

Alright, Sam’s angry with Steve, he accepts as he sips his drink. And he’s angry with Barnes, even more than he’s terrified of him. The man destroys his car, shoots at him, destroys his wings, throws him off a helicarrier and then what? Comes back saying “it wasn’t me” and expects everyone to start over? Then Steve just moves this insane, ruthless killer right into his spare room and waits for his friend to come back to him. And thinks that everyone will do the same.

Sam’s not just angry, he’s hurt.

He’s acknowledging this now. He was a good counsellor, he knows the value of being honest with himself. He also knows that it isn’t enough. Sitting in the VA meeting this morning, he was reminded of Barnes. Of a man who was more than a prisoner, locked out of his own mind for seventy years. A man who didn’t recognise his own name, who spent decades treated as a tool. That’s who Steve’s been trying to bring back into the world. Without help. Goddamn, Sam’s been an asshole. 

He was a good counsellor. He worked with veterans. He worked with people’s mental scars. He helped people to make peace with their pasts and reintegrate into a society that didn’t know how to handle them. And here he is, ignoring his own trauma, freezing out his friends, and refusing his help to a man who’s walking around with more accumulated damage than, probably, any other person has ever experienced.

He sits with the idea, and with the aftershock realisation that somewhere, he already knew this, until the ice in his coffee is melted, the drink now lukewarm and diluted. A cover of a familiar song drifts out of the café, the singer’s voice by turns strong and startlingly delicate. He sits there until he’s drunk each disappointing sip, letting the sun melt some of the tension from him, and eventually he decides. Instead of slinking home to feel terrible about himself, or avoiding the issue by challenging Tony to a barrel roll competition out over the Manhattan skyline, he’s going to visit the soldiers.

Mind made up, he begins the short walk, head full of tactful apologies, ways he can admit his fears, offers of help. He decides he needs to be open, that Barnes is probably unused to communication. He suspects that Steve spends all his time soothing the man, telling him that nothing’s his fault, that he’s still Steve’s friend, that he isn’t the Winter Soldier. Sam’s not sure that’s the best idea. 

Barnes isn’t the Winter Soldier, he thinks, but he isn’t Steve’s friend Bucky Barnes either. It would probably be good for Barnes if Steve acknowledged that. Sam knows about the pressure that Rogers can exert, especially when he goes into full Captain America mode, urging everyone to be the best version of themselves, to do the right thing. He was there at the Triskelion, he heard the speech. The price of freedom was high that day, and people paid that price supporting Captain America. Sam would’ve paid it too, nearly did. And now? What is Steve Rogers willing to bet on Barnes? Sam knows the answer. Steve already staked everything on nothing more than a flicker of doubt in an assassin’s familiar eye, and he’ll do it again without blinking. Sam doubts it’s ever occurred to him whether Barnes wants to take that bet.

Sam doubts, too, that Steve’s ever thought for a second about the pressure his sheer presence places on those around him. There’s a sense of conviction, of optimism and inherent goodness, that pours off those giant shoulders in the face of the worst odds. Up against HYDRA, Sam found it uplifting. Turned on restoring the wreck of Bucky Barnes, he’s found it oppressive, alarming even secondhand. For the first time, Sam feels truly sorry for the man that stalks his nightmares.

His head teeming with thoughts, he turns onto their street. Trees shade the sidewalk here, the dappled light making it a little hard to see. It’s not until he turns to climb the steps that he realises the front door is wide open. Immediately, his head clears, terrified. He leaps up the steps, fearing an intruder, an attack, wondering why he’s not carrying a weapon (he never carries a weapon). Suddenly he remembers whose house this is, and the fear increases. Two supersoldiers, if they’ve been taken there’s nothing he can do, unarmed and wearing jeans. Another thought. What if the supersoldiers are the problem? What if Barnes has snapped? What if he’s run? What if he’s hurt Steve?

He freezes in the hallway, hand flying to his phone, intending to text Tony, call in backup when he hears someone curse upstairs. Well. Sort of curse.

“Darn it, Buck,” says the unmistakable voice of Captain America, sounding stressed. “I don’t understand any of this.”

Sam’s eyes go wide as he hears a man respond. He can’t catch the words, but the tone is light and the voice is definitely Barnes. As he shifts back toward the door feeling stupid, caught between ringing the bell and leaving, he hears Barnes speak again. Then, Steve’s massive face appears over the bannister, all surprised eyebrows and confused smile.

“Sam!” Goddamnit, Rogers sounds delighted. “We’re painting Bucky’s room.”

Now it’s Sam’s turn to look surprised. He can feel his eyebrows shooting into his hairline and realises he’s, for once in his life, kind of speechless. 

“You’re doing what now?” is the best he can manage, after a few moments’ blinking. Steve is laughing delightedly at him, and Sam realises he’s never seen Rogers look this straightforwardly happy before. Something good must have happened.

Barnes appears noiselessly at the top of the stairs, and Sam does his best to disguise a flinch. Knowing he’s been unfair to the man hasn’t caused his fear to vanish. But Barnes looks different, and it’s not just the strip of white fabric holding his hair back in a makeshift headband like a young girl’s. He’s wearing a white vest, blue paint flecked on the stomach, and the murderous arm is on full display. It’s far less terrifying holding a paintbrush, coated that same vibrant blue, than a grenade launcher.

That isn’t the difference, though. His posture is almost soft, his stance open, like his guards are down a little. Sam thinks suddenly of cats, and realises: Barnes looks less like a mangy cornered stray, and more like a sleek housecat, confident in his own territory. There’s the threat of a smile on his lips, and light in his eyes as he looks down the stairs.

“You coming up?” he asks, and Sam realises they’ve never spoken directly. His voice is surprisingly soft. “We could do with a little help.”

Barnes sounds amused, and he’s got Sam’s attention. Whatever two enhanced humans think they might need his help with is something he has got to see. He nods, a little warily he’d admit, and climbs the stairs. The paint smell is overwhelming, and he spots blue on the back of Rogers’ arm. He walks into the room and stops short, horrified.

“Jesus Christ, Rogers!” 

Steve looks bewildered, but Barnes is smirking. There are patches of blue paint on various walls. None of the edges are taped, and the furniture isn’t covered. The big can of paint is sitting directly on the beautiful hardwood floor, which - also isn’t covered. A paintbrush is balanced precariously on the lid as it dries out, the bristles sticking together. Sam grinds the heels of his hands into his eye sockets and groans.

“Thought you were meant to be an artist, man. And the greatest tactical mind the world’s ever seen. That’s what my school textbook always told me, I’m sure of it. The state of this,” he says, and whistles. 

“And you,” Sam rounds on Barnes, who drops the smirk and looks startled, “did they wipe your common sense along with your personality?”

He freezes, as Rogers sucks in a sharp breath. He shouldn’t have said that, wants immediately to take the words back. Memory loss jokes at a traumatised former assassin he doesn’t know, and has spent several months hating? He’s either just triggered a flashback or invited the man to rip out his spine, he thinks, looking wildly for a way to make it better. But Barnes just tilts his head, narrowing his eyes a little, then shrugs lightly.

“Guess they must have.”

The air in the room starts to circulate once again. Sam looks despairingly at the mess they’ve made, shaking his head. It’s Steve who breaks the silence.

“If you’re not busy this afternoon, Sam, we could use the help.”

Sam thinks for a second. He isn’t busy this afternoon, and he’d been coming to offer his help anyway. Alright, he’d been planning to make apologies and play counsellor, but he could do painter-decorator just as well. And these two fools clearly need all the help they can get. 

He interlocks his fingers, stretches his hands out in front of him, and begins ordering the men about. 

“We need old sheets to cover the furniture, something thick to protect the floors, and tape for the edges, unless you’re planning on painting the ceiling Gatorade-blue as well. You got those things?”

They do not. Steve finds some spare bedding with faded bloodstains on it, and Sam mocks his Depression-era attitude. Saving bloody pillowcases when you’re a multimillionaire? Then he spots Barnes unconsciously touching the strip of fabric tying back his hair, and when he looks back at Steve the man’s eyes have gone alarmingly soft. Sam catches his breath at the look. 

There’s no tape in the house, and Sam’s not interested in Steve claiming he can paint the edges without messing up. Artist or no artist, supersoldier or not, nobody’s hands are that steady. Also, he doesn’t want to see Steve’s smug grin if he succeeds. He offers to go to the hardware store, assuming Barnes can’t manage it and imagining Steve won’t want to leave the pair of them together. He’s surprised when Barnes almost chases Steve out of the room.

There’s an awkward silence when he’s gone, Barnes standing unnaturally still by the door as Sam folds and re-folds one of the ruined sheets, half an eye on the other man as he hunts for words that aren’t there.

“I tried to kill you,” says Barnes, and his voice is almost childlike, the same voice Sam heard moments before crashing feet-first into the unmasked man levelling a gun at Captain America on a Washington street that looked like a warzone. The first words Sam had heard him speak.

All Sam can do is nod, and swallow.

“You’re afraid of me,” continues Barnes. His voice goes flat with the next words. “The flying man who kicked me. Unexpected threat. Demonstrated competencies: flight, firearms. Obvious combat experience. Capabilities unknown. Alliance to Target is clear. Recommended action: if threat presents itself, neutralise immediately.”

Sam has no response to this, but he recognises it for what it is. A report from the Winter Soldier, and somehow, he thinks, an apology. This is what he was to Barnes, this is why Barnes ripped off his wing and threw him into the sky. He nods, and thinks for a second, then offers his right hand to the man with a genuine, if hard-fought, smile.

“Start over? Sam Wilson.”

Barnes grasps his hand reflexively, then freezes. Sam wonders if he’s done something wrong, if the other man doesn’t like being touched, but neither of them ends the contact. Barnes looks a little dazed, and, Sam thinks, terribly sad.

“I don’t know what name to give you,” he says finally, flesh hand still in Sam’s. “Steve calls me Bucky, but I’m not - it isn’t - I can’t -”

He trails off, and Sam cautiously releases his hand, moving to grasp Barnes’ forearm instead. 

“Man, this is what I was worrying about this morning. Steve’s a good man and - no, that’s the problem, right?” He looks at Barnes and there’s a spark in his eye that tells Sam he’s on the right track.

He continues speaking. “He looks at you with those blue eyes, radiating all that goodness and belief, and my god, the force of the man. Feels like the sun on you, doesn’t it?”

Barnes nods slowly, and Sam gives him time to speak, removing his hand from the other man’s arm, but he stays silent.

“Mind if I tell you what’s worrying me? I don’t want to be putting ideas into your head or words in your mouth, wouldn’t want to do that to anyone and definitely not you, but - maybe Steve’s told you, but I worked with people who come back from war, before I met Steve. It was my job to listen, and I’ve heard some stories. And before that, I came back myself.”

Again, Barnes nods, opening and closing his mouth before finally saying, “Sure.”

Sam sits on the floor, leaning back against the foot of the bed and stretching his legs out. After a few moments, Barnes comes down too, folding cross-legged in one fluid movement.

“The way you move is creepy, man. Makes me feel old.”

The lightness is back in Barnes’ face for a second as he smirks at Sam. 

“Remind me when you were born?” he says.

Sam groans, as he realises he just told a hundred-year-old man he feels old. Barnes grins hugely at him for a second, and then his face closes up. Sam takes this as encouragement to return to the topic of Steve.

“Right, so Rogers is a good man, but he’s stubborn as hell, too. And yeah he’s good, but it’s like he’s too good, he doesn’t see the things that other people worry about, and thinks that it’s enough to believe in the right thing and act on it.”

Barnes chews his lip contemplatively.

“Well, the way I see it, you fall off some train in 1945, and that faith of his is somehow wrecked, maybe because he figures it’s his fault his arm wasn’t six inches longer and he couldn’t reach you, maybe because he doesn’t know how to live in a world you’re not in. I couldn’t say.”

Sam steals a glance at Barnes, who looks pained but captivated.

“So he crashes a plane into the ice and saves the world, and goes down in history as this noble hero. But he doesn’t die, so for the next seventy years he’s an icicle, no memories, nothing new, and then they defrost him and not only is he alive, it’s like you died a week ago, and he deals with that somehow, squashes it down, and gets on with saving the world. Might interest you to know that he was a bit of an asshole about it too, or so I heard. Self-righteous. He’s not this perfect statue of ideals, you know. You never thought he was back when you were kids, I know that.”

Barnes leaves off chewing his lip and grimaces, ducking his head. He still doesn’t speak, so Sam continues, looking at Barnes as he pushes on, trying to address this vast, impossible subject before Steve comes back.

“Same time as Steve’s frozen solid in the Arctic, you’re going through hell. You’re taken god knows where, by god knows who. People do all kinds of things to your mind, your body. They make you into the thing they need. They don’t act like you’re human, mostly. You do the things they tell you to do, and then they freeze you again.”

Sam glances at the Barnes ahead of his next question, wanting to gauge his response.

“But you stayed in there the entire time, didn’t you? You gave me that report earlier. You remember everything?”

The look on Barnes’ face tells him all he needs to know. The open-postured man who greeted him from the top of the stairs has vanished, his big lean body curling in on itself. Sam notices that behind the drawn-up knees, he’s clasping his metal arm to his chest protectively.

“Go on,” he spits out. 

“Alright, but you want me to stop, you’re worried you’re going to snap, anything - you tell me and I’ll be quiet.” Sam waits for acknowledgment before continuing.

“Right, I’ll make this quick. I think they treated you well, sometimes. Gave you things you wanted, took care of you, maybe a little freedom to choose things. Some of them might even have been kind to you. I’m guessing they told you that what you were doing was good. And you remember that, and knowing what they were now, knowing what they wanted you for, you’re conflicted. Because your mind’s running two versions, the one you’ve learned and the one you lived, and you can’t just make the other one go away.”

Barnes has his head in his hands and his breathing is heavy. He speaks raggedly into the hollow between his knees and his chest.

“How do you know that? How do you-” Sam’s worried, knows he’s pushed far too much, tried to skate through far too many topics in Steve’s brief absence and wonders what the man will find when he returns. He wonders briefly if Steve will kick him out for shattering Barnes, has a flash of thought that Barnes might shatter him, literally. But the former assassin speaks again, voice a little smoother.

“All of that. It’s all of that, and it’s the things I’ve done, that I remember doing. People I killed, shots I took. And then Steve looks at me like I’m meant to be Bucky Barnes, his best friend, his - I can’t be the man who stands next to Captain America. And every time I try to talk to him about it, he tells me I’m okay like he’s settling a child. If I’m going to be okay, I need him to accept that the Bucky Barnes he knew isn’t coming back.”

As he finishes speaking, he pulls his head up, long hair framing eyes that are a little red, a little damp. Sam looks at him, truly looks, and nods once. Barnes is going to be fine, he thinks.

“You should tell him that. Let me know if I can help though, Barnes. I mean it.”

The other man snatches a breath sharply.

“Barnes? You’re calling me Barnes?”

“That a problem, man? You don’t seem like a James to me, and I’m damn well not calling you Bucky. Can find you something else if you’d prefer, though.”

“Barnes is fine. Good, maybe. People called me Barnes before, guys I worked with and in the war.” 

The two men sit in silence for a moment, both thinking about their conversation. Sam’s concerned he’s overreached, that he’s pushed too hard. He’s surprised at himself too. His fear’s still there, but it feels less oppressive. The man beside him on the floor is dangerous, and they both know it. But he isn’t the man Sam fought on the helicarrier - although he was. Sam wonders whether Steve will understand.

It’s Barnes who breaks the silence. He puts a hand in his pocket, and pulls out an iPhone with blue paint smeared across the back. Sam groans despairingly and shakes his head once again.

Barnes looks at him, and then his face breaks into a tiny embarrassed smile. 

“Can you show me how to get music on this thing?” he asks. 

Sam’s baffled. This man can work a robotic arm and fly a quinjet without training, but downloading music is beyond him? He’s not going to question it though, not for something so small. He begins to explain.

It becomes clear that Barnes has been kept away from music. His eyes are hungry as Sam shows him how he can find any song he wants by simply searching the name, that he can save albums, listen to different versions of the same song, all on the little phone. The idea of playlists clearly fascinates him, and he asks Sam to show him three times, confirming again and again that he can choose exactly what goes onto each one, and that he can have as many of them as he likes. It steals Sam’s breath when he realises that this little thing that he takes for granted is brand new to Barnes, not only as a recovering superassassin, but as someone whose last authentic memories of popular music probably starred Bing Crosby and The Ink Spots. 

Sam downloads a few of his favourite albums for Barnes, and puts on a Billie Holiday collection, thinking the sound might be familiar. He doesn’t expect Barnes to close his eyes and stretch his arms, rolling his shoulders and looking for all the world as though the music’s drugging him. He hums, too, picking out lines from the accompanying band rather than trying to keep up with the freedom of the soloists. Sam just watches, stunned, as the music flows and the century-old killer basks in the sound like a cat in sunlight. 

He’s still staring at the loose, easy figure slouched on the floor when he hears Rogers barging up the stairs. Barnes has turned his face to the door, but his eyes are still closed when Steve freezes in the doorway, seemingly as startled as Sam.

“We saw her sing once, Stevie,” mumbles Barnes, to Sam’s utter shock. “Remember? That club in the square just off 7th, one that caused all that fuss with its politics.”

Steve looks nonplussed, whether by Barnes’ posture or by his words Sam can’t tell. His own mind is spinning. Did he truly just hear Barnes say these two had Billie Holiday sing live?

“Buck, you know I never had your ear for music,” Steve’s saying, looking down at Barnes with hopeless fondness. 

Barnes’ eyes snap open and he comes to his feet as fluidly as he’d sat down. Sam curses internally, damning Steve’s inability to control the force of his affection, to offer it to Barnes in manageable quantities instead of drenching him with it. But Barnes still looks relaxed as he takes the canvas bag Steve’s holding out, peering into it and tossing a roll of tape at Sam.

“Thank you,” he mouths, and Sam nods, relieved when Steve doesn’t ask.

They get to taping the walls and laying down sheets to catch the drips, working easily together as the music continues to play softly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> musical notes:
> 
> 1\. Sam's café is playing Eva Cassidy's cover of [Time After Time](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWvPOJOYqGA)  
> 2\. "that club in the square" where Bucky (because he absolutely still is Bucky, he's just not Steve's same old Bucky anymore and everybody knows it, even Steve) suggests he and Steve saw Billie Holiday perform is [Café Society](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/rockandjazzmusic/10489551/Cafe-Society-the-groundbreaking-club-that-time-forgot.html) \- it was open from 1938 to 1948, and was notably the first "integrated" club in New York. its motto was "The right sort of club for the wrong sort of people", and it regularly hosted politically charged performances and satire. Holiday performed [Strange Fruit](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Web007rzSOI) for the first time there in 1939. it's unlikely that Bucky and Steve would've been there, but let's embrace possibility and say that they were.


	4. Disturbances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint Barton does not respect the privacy of supersoldiers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one's been a battle - Clint's the member of the Avengers i have the least clear image of, and that's partly why i wanted to include him as a PoV, but it also made this a hell of a challenge and one i'm not sure i did a great job of.

If any of those people were to look up right now, thinks Clint, they’d get one hell of a shock. He’s perched improbably high on a tower of the bridge, the cars crawling below stacked bumper to bumper in the heavy weekend traffic, sunlight glimmering off the windshields. He feels his cellphone buzz in his pocket, and extricates it carefully, mindful of how far above the ground he is. There’s a text from Natasha.

_get down from there_

He scans the streets below. Natasha is one of the few people he doesn’t mind being able to sneak up on him, though she takes it as badly as ever when he picks her out of a crowd she’s trying to lose herself in. It doesn’t happen often.

She’s not trying to lose herself now. Her bright red head pops out at him in seconds, vivid in the sun against the chainlink fence of the pedestrian walkway, phone in hand. She looks up at him right then, waving lazily.

Instead of responding to the text, Clint signs “WHY?” at her. Even with her sharp eyes, he’s far enough away that it’s a slight dick move. She counters, knowing that he’s more than capable of reading even the movement of her eyebrows from this distance.

“SOLDIERS' HOUSE - LET'S GO”

Clint shoots her a thumbs up, grinning. The supersoldiers are his own personal reality TV show. Natasha dragged him to see them again and again after Barnes first reappeared, and despite his initial reluctance he began to enjoy the trips more and more. Especially as Barnes became less murderous. Since she decided that he’s doing alright - and he is, for someone who was brainwashed, thinks Clint heavily - the visits have tailed off a little.

Barnes is still spacey and twitchy by turns, but rarely violent. He gets exasperated with Steve’s fussing, too. And Clint loves to watch Steve fuss. Clint started calling him “Dad” a little while back - the impotent way in which he tries to lay down the law with Barnes, to be good company that Barnes enjoys spending time around, to be considerate and soft with Barnes, reminds Clint so much of his own internal battles while dealing with his kids. Except that Barnes is not an adorable child, and Steve is a terrible parent.

Clint scrambles down the cable. A couple of cars sound their horns in shock as he lands and strolls the last hundred metres to where Nat’s waiting, flipping his hearing aids on as he walks over to her. The city rushes back into his ears.

“Any particular reason we’re visiting the Gruesome Twosome, Nat?” he asks, skipping a greeting. She rolls her eyes at the childish nickname and shrugs.

Alright then. Apparently nothing he needs to know about.

They don’t talk much on the half hour walk. There’s too much sound filtering through to Clint from the city to understand clearly without visual clues, and walking side by side makes it hard to get a look at a person’s face and hands. Natasha seems preoccupied anyway.

This leaves Clint with his thoughts, and he’s amusing himself by running through his list of pop culture references that Cap’s missed when they turn onto the narrow street where the soldiers live. He’s wondering whether the old man knows what a Kardashian is when he feels Natasha freeze beside him. He scans his surroundings and locks rapidly onto the open green door.

They communicate quickly and silently, their well-honed blend of sign language and familiarity formulating a plan with a few economical gestures and expressions. They enter the house, silent as, well, a pair of world-class covert operatives. The house feels quiet as they creep up the stairs, Natasha leading. As they make the landing, there’s a heavy thump and a brief scuffle which makes the banister shiver. The disturbance has them both snapping upright, hands flying to concealed weapons, before a familiar voice rings out.

“Barnes!” barks Sam, for all the world like a commanding officer but for a pinch of humour in his tone. “There are rules in home decoration and one of those rules is Do Not Balance Brushes On The Tops Of Doors Or So Help Me God.”

There’s an unfamiliar sound when he finishes speaking, and Clint looks wide-eyed at Natasha. Her expression - shocked, a little fond - confirms it: someone just giggled, and it may well have been the man known (or rather, not known) to most of the world as a ghostly assassin.

Sam’s grumbling now, indistinct to Clint’s ears. He catches the words “down my shirt” before the voice rises to indignation at “in my HAIR, man”. There’s a pause, and then a loud laugh that’s unmistakably Cap. Clint’s smirking too. The image of Sam with his always-perfect hair flecked with paint is hilarious.

Natasha’s signing at him again, and Clint can feel his grin getting bigger. Now they’ve established there’s no danger, he really wants to know what’s going on in that room, and Natasha has a look that suggests there’s no harm in having a little fun with the three men.

The pair of spies wait patiently on the landing until it’s quiet again, and Natasha slinks forward to a spot with a view of the open door. She jerks her head, indicating to Clint that he should join her.

From his new position, he can see the backs of all three men. Steve is working away on a wide stretch of wall, methodically covering the clinical white with a slightly alarming shade of blue while Sam’s carefully painting the edges around the white wooden window frame. The Winter Soldier, however, is sitting - no, lounging - on the floor at the foot of the bed, one leg stretched out before him, fiddling with an iPhone. He looks up, and stares directly at Clint, more life in his eyes than Clint’s seen before. There’s even a hint of what might be amusement. The assassin raises an eyebrow and twitches the phone in his hand toward the other two men, and adds a gesture by which he means, if Clint’s not totally mistaken, “fuck ‘em up”.

He grins in response, and peels away from the wall, padding silently into the bedroom. Natasha’s behind him, and with a frankly unsettling lack of noise, she unfolds herself across the expanse of the double bed. Clint shucks off his shoes and perches on the sturdy headboard, bare feet on the pillow (sorry, he thinks, but doesn’t mean it).

The Winter Soldier seems pretty relaxed about two superspies lurking behind his head, all things considered. The Winter Soldier seems pretty relaxed full stop, in fact. Clint can see that he’s got a music app opened, and watches curiously as the man adds song after song to a playlist named - and even he has to squint to confirm this, because he’s not sure he can believe his usually faithful eyes - “Stevie”.

The songs he chooses push Clint’s eyebrows further and further into his hairline, to the point that he can feel the creases in his forehead deepening. They’re all old songs, Irving Berlin and the Ink Spots and the like, and Clint realises these would have been popular songs when Bucky Barnes was a young man. They’re familiar old songs too, the kind that haven’t faded over time. What’s got Clint’s eyebrows attempting to escape his face, though, is how damned romantic every single song on there is. They’re the songs Clint thinks of couples choosing for their first dances, the songs which make the grandparents close their eyes and sway in their seats, telling happy stories from their younger days.

Well then, thinks Clint.

He’s interrupted by Steve’s voice raising in volume, the indistinct deep rumble of it becoming clearer and sharper with irritation as he gesticulates at a line of blue droplets that’s flicked across the floor, finding a gap between the dust sheets and marking the hardwood boards beneath.

“I’m just saying, Sam, look at the drops, look at the arc of them. What kind of crazy paintbrush ballet would I have to have been doing to flick it out like that?”

Sam’s about to argue back, glaring at Steve with the eyes of someone who’s not in the mood to have his expertise questioned, and who frankly has been dealing with Steve’s shit all day. It’s far from the first time Clint’s seen that expression on the face of someone forced to put up with Captain America’s stubborn ass for an extended period. He’s tempted to keep quiet and watch it all play out. But…

“Ooh, Cap’s got a point on this one, Wilson! What you gonna do?”

There are three pairs of eyes on him immediately. Nat flicks him a glare, a clear “why-did-you-break-our-cover-asshole” on her face, before turning back to the others, settling into her usual composure and wiggling her fingers in greeting. Steve’s whirled around, droplets of paint flying off the roller, marking the window, the bedcover, the wardrobe in blue. And Sam - Sam screamed like a child when Clint spoke and is now glowering at him as though he wants to shove the paintbrush down his throat in penance.

Only one person hasn’t looked at Clint. At the foot of the bed, Barnes is choking with laughter, half-formed words coming out of his mouth as his shoulders shake and he points at Sam and Steve, armed with painting equipment and ready to fight.

Clint takes in the whole scene, and then cracks up too.

“God DAMN it,” shrieks Wilson, his voice unnaturally high - which only sends Clint and Barnes into worse hysterics, and the corners of Steve’s mouth are twitching as he brandishes the roller, and Clint can see a shake in Natasha’s shoulders, “How long have you two psychos been there?”

Natasha and Steve lose it. Clint chokes out, “Couple of minutes,” trying very hard not to let spit run down his chin as he cackles demonically.

Barnes flaps his flesh hand madly, holding up four fingers and curling forward on himself. Everyone turns to look at him as he wheezes and gets out the words “four and a half”.

Steve’s perfect cartoon-character face twists into a genuine surprised laugh as Sam rounds on the long-haired man.

“You knew?! You assassin-spy-types, you’re evil, I’m telling you -” and the rest of the words are lost as the others laugh and laugh, and eventually Sam’s joining in, looking profoundly embarrassed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's Peggy Lee again! singing Irving Berlin's [How Deep Is The Ocean?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufCJ-xsN8c0/), released in 1941. and here's one by [Ella Fitzgerald](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fY2EOIjeBE/) which is, as ever, sensational - but which only came out while our dear Sgt Barnes was on ice. 
> 
> and here are the Ink Spots with [I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l6vqPUM_FE/), also from 1941.
> 
> as always, any kind of response - positive or negative, kudos or comments - helps me to do more and do better. 
> 
> i'm so grateful to you for reading!!
> 
> PS - still messing about on [tumblr](https://gracelesso.tumblr.com/) so come say hi!


	5. Compensation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Natasha Romanov has some bridges to mend, and a handful of self-worth issues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's lots of talk about recovery and identity in here, so consider yourself warned - it's not the most cheerful chapter. it ends on a sweet note, though!

Natasha sits on the bed cross-legged, her composure regained, as the men around her howl with laughter. Sam really does look ridiculous, spattered in blue paint. Steve giggles like a child, his face comically pink and his eyes crinkled, one hand clasped to his chest. Clint’s dignity is in tatters as he tries to speak through hiccups. Only James - the Soldier, Bucky, Yasha, Barnes, - has regained some level of calm. He’s looking at her with bright eyes, both a near stranger and a face more familiar than her mother’s. She smiles back fondly. It’s good to see him like this.

Once, she thinks, she failed this man, even as he had set her on a path back to a world she hadn’t known she’d lost. Now she’s attempting to repay him, helping him make his way into a new life with all the warmth and tact available to her. More red in her ledger erased, this time with kindness, not blood. It’s new and a little alien, but it feels right.

She watches him as the rest of the room settles, only for everyone to burst back into giggles as Sam tries to wipe away the blotches of paint covering him and instead smears it across his face. Through the noise, her eyes don’t leave his ice-grey ones, and neither of them speaks. There are things to be said, but for the moment, they can wait.

After a few minutes, the hysteria finally passes for good. Clint’s hiccups subside, and Sam and Steve return to their work.

“You planning to help out here at all?” Sam asks the trio around the bed. “Or you just here to scare the crap out of me?”

James shrugs, already absorbed in his phone once again. Clint tilts his head, considering, before he answers. 

“Just here to watch, pal. We were only coming over to say hi, didn’t sign up for an afternoon of manual labor. Maybe I’ll chip in if you need a real pro to show you how it’s done.”

Sam mutters something sharp, and turns to Natasha.

“How about you?”

“Hmm.” She stretches deeply, easy as ever, and blinks at him. “Do you need me?”

Sam looks inexplicably flustered. It’s not the first time, thinks Natasha. His smooth charm slips just a fraction when he speaks to her, and it’s sort of sweet. She’s still often the only woman on the team, and she doesn’t take it for granted that the men respect her enough not to give her a hard time for it. She had to earn that respect, though. Particularly from Tony, who’s finally left behind most of his sleazy jerkoff ways and developed a personality she can respect in return. Clint treats her like a sibling, Steve as a friend. But Sam Wilson gets nervous, and right now he’s making fish-faces and failing to answer her very simple question.

“Maybe later?” she supplies, and he nods and shuts his mouth.

James is laughing at her. She knows him well enough to recognise that slight glint in his eye and the half-quirked eyebrow, and she knows it’s her he’s laughing at, and not poor Sam. She wonders if he remembers her. He hasn’t said anything, but then, nor has she. It will be an uncomfortable enough conversation to have without an audience, and she wants to respect Steve’s request not to speak to him alone just yet. There’s something in the way he meets her eyes, though, that makes her think he knows exactly who she is, who they were. Who he was to her for a few short days, so long ago now.

The topic will have to be broached eventually. It’s preying on her mind this morning, and she spent the whole walk from Clint’s bridge to the house wondering whether to bring it up. Not today, she thinks. The atmosphere in the house is infinitely lighter than the last time she was here. She’d prefer not to destroy this moment.

Some warped part of her had been relieved earlier, when she’d seen the open door and immediately assumed there was a threat. It had given her permission to go into the house, negated the need to knock and wait for Steve to respond. They’ve barely spoken in the last month, since her revelation gouged holes in their friendship. But today, he seems relaxed. Happy to see her, even. She should probably speak to him, find out where they stand, reiterate her apologies. For now, though, she’s just glad to be around him.

-

She tunes back into the conversation. Sam wants them to put some music on, and has just discovered that they don’t own speakers.

“I have my headphones,” says Steve mulishly, “and the ones on the computer are good enough most of the time. I don’t need to spend more money on technology when I’ve already got things that can do the job.”

“You’re breaking my heart, Cap. You got no appreciation for quality. Hey Barnes,” says Sam, turning away from Steve and rolling his eyes, “wouldn’t it be great to have some decent speakers in this house? So you could play all your new music nice and loud, turn the bass up so you can feel it in the floor?”

Natasha sees a little tension creep into James’ shoulders as he thinks about the question.

“I don’t need anything,” he says quietly, and a little uncertainly. “There were headphones in the box with this.” He holds up the iPhone he’s been hunched over since they arrived.

“Did I say anything about ‘need’?” Sam replies, voice gentle but with a sharpness in his eyes that Natasha thinks she understands. “You want to listen to music, you can do that now. You want to hear things in better quality than Captain Hopeless over here cares for, you got the right to do that.”

James is still looking unsure, his eyes flicking around the room, when Clint chips in.

“If it sways things either way, I’d appreciate it if there was a better sound system in this house. No disrespect, Cap, but the last time I was over to watch the football I couldn’t hear a damn thing from that television of yours. Horrible sound.”

Steve flushes, but he understands what’s happening here, so he nods in agreement.

“Alright. Sam, Clint, since you’re the ones with opinions on this, can I commission you? There’s a place within walking distance, give me your phone Sam I’ll find it for you -”

Sam interrupts him as he hands over the phone.

“Want to come, Barnes? Someone who lives in this house should have some input, as I see it, and we just established Steve’s not worth listening to about music.”

Natasha’s impressed. Sam’s handling the situation beautifully, giving James plenty of room to say no, showing him that he has agency while simultaneously suggesting what he might do with that agency. It took her so long to learn to act on her opinions and wants, she remembers, even after she understood that she was allowed to have them. 

She flicks her gaze to Clint, and he signs at her quickly. He’ll stay, he says. He thinks that James trusts Sam a little, and he doesn’t want to step on that. She nods agreement.

James stands up, pockets his iPhone, and rolls his shoulders, the left one whirring mechanically. Then he looks to Steve, whose face is somewhere between startled and hopelessly affectionate.

“You going to survive without me for half an hour?” he drawls, surprising a laugh out of Steve and making Natasha start. That was James’ voice. Not the Soldier, not the man who’s been living in Steve’s guest bedroom the past few months. Her James, whoever that might have been. Does he remember?

\- 

Natasha’s off her game today, preoccupied. The two men have left, and she didn’t notice. It’s just Steve, Clint, and her now. Steve puts down his roller, wipes his hands on his shirt, and flings himself heavily onto the bed next to her with a vast sigh.

He sounds content, she thinks. Again, guilt scrapes its nails over her scalp, and she shivers minutely, but pulls it back down. She watches him sprawl easily on the bed for a minute, eyes closed, until Clint speaks.

“So,” he says drily. “What’s with the blue?”

It’s a fair question. The unevenly-daubed paint is luridly bright - a color better suited to swimming pools than bedroom walls. Steve runs his hand over his face then sits up, grinning.

“I have no idea. Bucky chose it.”

This comes as a surprise to Natasha. Before today, James has shown no sign at all that he even wants to make decisions. 

“What happened, Steve?” she asks, realising it’s the first thing she’s said to him directly since she arrived and immediately feeling awkward.

“I don’t know, really. I went out to get groceries this morning and when I came back, Bucky was upstairs with the windows open, painting his room bright blue and singing.”

“Singing?” says Clint after a pause, his surprise obvious. Natasha’s silent. The Soldier never spoke beyond what was necessary. The idea of him singing is absurd, almost indecent somehow. Even the happier James of that transformative week in Hong Kong didn’t seem the type. But then - he wasn’t a person, wasn’t Bucky Barnes. Just an echo.

“He used to sing all the time before the war,” says Steve, incredible warmth in his voice. “I’d hear him coming up the street, middle of the day, completely sober, singing at the top of his lungs. Our upstairs neighbors used to stamp on the floor, shout for him to quiet down.”

Natasha stays quiet, processing, as she listens to Clint ask Steve more about the day’s events. She responds when she ought to, laughing when Steve describes Sam’s horror at their incompetence, and nodding as he explains how much more relaxed Bucky was after being left with Sam for half an hour. Sam did more to help Steve acclimatise in a few short weeks than the whole of SHIELD had managed in over two years. Of course he’s good for James.

James. The names are a problem. Steve only ever talks about him as Bucky, and the others all call him Barnes. She knew him as the Soldier for years, but that was when they were both nothing more than weapons. In their impossible long-ago week, the pair of them somehow liberated despite their physical confinement, he’d told her to call him James, so in her head, she does. It had been a reflex, though - the summoning of an old identity, a mask to cover the void which had replaced the man. When that mask had begun to fracture, she’d called him Yasha and stroked his hair as he cried.

She wonders if anybody has asked this person, the one re-forming himself out of fragmented memories and newfound autonomy, what he would like to be called. She wonders if he has an answer.

-

Clint is teasing Steve about his taste in music and threatening to introduce Barnes (James, Bucky, the Soldier) to various contemporary horrors. Natasha watches. Steve is laughing, but his eyes are tired when he looks at her. Clint catches the moment and falls silent.

“How are you doing, really?” she asks. She wonders if she still has the right to ask this question. Maybe Steve and his unshakeable moral compass don’t want someone like her for a friend. It had been one thing for her to tell him that she considered the truth a matter of circumstance in the abstract - quite another to prove it by telling him only after James had appeared, vulnerable and near-feral, in Steve’s bedroom that she had known long before the Winter Soldier came into their lives that Bucky Barnes had not died in 1945.

Steve appears to be wrestling with something internal. Expressions flicker across his face - a frown, a half-smile, a grimace - before it eventually falls slack. God, he looks exhausted. Clint leans over and settles a hand on the bigger man’s shoulder, and the gesture seems to break something inside Steve. Perhaps it’s because it’s coming from Clint, who’s so rarely anything but loud, funny, insincere. 

“It’s so hard, guys,” says Steve quietly. Nobody speaks, giving him time to sort through his thoughts, to decide what he wants to share with them.

“I miss him so much. Is that terrible? I have him back but he’s not him, and somehow I miss him more than I did when I thought he was dead. I don’t think I’m supposed to feel like that.”

She almost reaches out to him, but holds back, waiting.

“He’s not my Bucky, and I keep forgetting that, and I know I should just want him to get better, find some kind of normal, but I want my friend back. It’s so selfish. I feel horrible for it.”

He speaks in jerky, broken sentences at first, the confessions forcing themselves out, but as he continues the words pour out of him, as though Natasha and Clint’s quiet presence has finally given him permission to speak.

“Today’s been incredible, but every time I see something that makes me think I’m getting him back I feel guilty, because I’m not supposed to want to get him back. I know he’s never going to be the same. But then he does something, like singing that stupid fruit song, and he sounds so like he used to and it makes me so happy, but at the same time I’m just waiting for it to go away, for him to do something that reminds me he’s not Bucky, he’s not alright.”

Natasha catches Clint’s glance, and bites down on the frustration that’s beginning to pool in her chest. She doesn’t get to be irritated with Steve, no matter how much his words needle her. Of course he feels this way - it’s her reaction that’s not normal, influenced too much by her own history. Even now, she remains skittish about others projecting their expectations onto her, or suggesting that she ought in some way to be different. Or that she’s not alright. She breathes rhythmically for a moment, and then speaks.

“Alright is relative, Steve,” and she hates it when he flinches but keeps going when Clint nods. 

“He’s doing well, I think. It’s all going to be slow, and it won’t be a straight line, but he’s making progress. He’s remembering bits, and he’s acting on the things that he wants. Those aren’t little things. You might need to accept that for him, right now, that counts as doing alright.”

Steve puts his hand to the back of his neck, face flushed. When he replies his words are more measured than before.

“I know you’re right. I don’t like that you have to remind me, but you’re right. Today’s a good day, but two days ago was really bad. He just sat in the corner of the hallway with a gun on his lap, watching the front door. Didn’t move, didn’t know me, didn’t even acknowledge I was there until I got in his sightline, and then he just tracked me with his eyes until I was out of the way again. Seventeen hours, he sat there. And then he just got up, ate a banana, and went to bed. When he got up yesterday morning he was normal again. Not Bucky-normal, I mean - this normal. Quiet, on guard, doing regular things like cooking and showering. Speaking a little bit. We went to the bookstore in the afternoon, and he didn’t choose anything but he looked around, picked some things up, read the backs of them. I bought him one about space.”

Once again Natasha finds herself fighting annoyance. To her it sounds like James is making incredible progress. It’s less than a year since the helicarriers, only three months since he appeared in Steve’s bedroom. Three months after Clint brought her in, she had still been essentially a prisoner, held in a treatment facility and mined daily for information. She doesn’t especially want to explain this to Steve, though, so she’s intensely grateful when Clint steps in.

“Sounds to me like he’s doing really well, Cap. I know it’s hard, but you’re doing your best and you need to cut yourself some slack. There’s no perfect template for helping people after trauma, and Barnes - I’m pretty sure he’s a unique case.”

This gets a small smile from Steve, but he doesn’t look up, which means he doesn’t notice the shift in Clint’s posture that alerts Natasha to his next topic.

“Look, when I got out from under whatever mind control Loki put on me,” he begins. Steve’s head snaps up. Clint never talks about this.

“When I got my head back, the first thing I wanted to do was go home, see my wife, be with my family. But I didn’t. I needed to finish the fight, try to make up for what I’d done a little and make sure that bastard could never get back into my head.”

Suddenly, the parallels are blinding and Natasha feels furious with herself for not realizing earlier. She’s been so wrapped up in her own drama, in her confused feelings about James and her guilt over lying to Steve. She tries to squash the emotion as Clint continues.

“When everything was over, in New York, I kept finding reasons not to go home. New jobs, bullshit admin projects, just - anything to put it off. Wasn’t until Fury cornered me and gave me a pretty strongly worded lecture that I went back, and when I got there it was terrible. I love my wife, and she’s always known as much about what I do as she’s allowed. And somebody had told her what had happened with Loki, so it wasn’t like I was hiding anything from her. Wasn’t like I didn’t trust her. But I didn’t trust myself. I didn’t know I wouldn’t hurt her, or the kids. She’d try to tell me she knew I wouldn’t, that I would never, and that - that terrified me more than anything. Because I’d known I would never turn on SHIELD, known it like I know my own name. And then one day I did. She could never understand what that does to a person. I wouldn’t want her to.”

For a long moment, the only sounds in the room are Clint’s slow, deliberate breathing and the light rustle of the curtains against the frame of the open window. Then Steve asks the obvious question.

“Do you- How did- Did you get past it?”

Clint smiles in response. It’s a little sad at the edges, but his eyes are kind and reassuring.

“Yeah, we got there in the end, Steve. Took a little time, some bad moments, and a lot of patience from both of us, but we’re alright now. Doesn’t go away, though. I’ll always be just a little on edge, little bit worried that I might do something to hurt them. I don’t think that’s bad.”

They sit quietly for a moment, and Natasha watches Steve think. She can help, she knows. She has experience that could help him to understand what James is going through, how best to support him. She doesn’t like to talk about it, though. 

After everything, she owes Steve some truth, she thinks. A little compensation for all she held back. Perhaps it’ll be easier with Clint here. He witnessed enough of her recovery, and he’s truly the only person she’s ever discussed it with since. She looks over at him for reassurance, and he signs to her quickly, encouraging her.

“When Clint brought me in, I wanted it. I’d been looking for a way out since-” she falters, because each of them has heard a different version of the event she’s referring to, and she can’t think immediately how to communicate it without the need to recount her whole history with James, how he had been the one to show her that she might be something more than a finely-balanced tool.

“Since Hong Kong,” she picks up, continuing when she sees both men nod. “It had been years, and now when I look back I can see other chances, other times I could have got out. I think, though, that it took me that long to be ready to take an opportunity. That kind of conditioning - it goes so deep. I believed I needed them, that I didn’t have a value or a purpose beyond what they used me for.”

This is the most she’s ever shared of her own free will, thinks Natasha. She feels stripped raw, vulnerable in a way that makes her want to run out of the room, to never speak to Clint or Steve ever again. Hiding in the shadow of that emotion, though, is a tiny shoot of something else, something unfamiliar and positive. She grasps that feeling, and steels herself before speaking again.

“SHIELD kept me in a facility for six months. When they weren’t demanding information, there was a lot of talking. I wasn’t good at it. They wanted me to talk about myself, and that wasn’t something I knew how to do. I got better at telling them what they wanted to hear, but it was more for them than for me. It wasn’t until I got out of there that I started trying to - construct myself, I think.”

Clint’s nodding affirmation again. He was there all through her early days, as often as he could be. Fury had tasked him with keeping an eye on her, and he felt responsible for her on top of that. She motions at him, giving him permission to speak.

“She was weird, Cap,” he says, grinning at a memory. “You know the whole sweetness-and-light act she puts on before she scares the crap out of Tony?”

This story. Natasha doesn’t like stories at her expense, and she particularly dislikes ones that make people laugh.

“She used to do it every time someone spoke to her. But only when people spoke to her. She’d be sitting in a meeting radiating this murder-energy, just like Barnes does sometimes, and then someone would ask her a question and she’d flip a switch, answer like she was made of sunshine, and then immediately go back to looking like she could take down the whole room without breaking a sweat. It was terrifying.”

Steve smiles, picturing it, but then his face falls into a frown.

“Why were you like that?” he asks, sounding puzzled.

“That facade was what they taught me, for missions. How to act around people, make them want to know me. I didn’t have anything else to guide me.”

She pauses, thinking. Steve is worrying about James, she’s sure. Wondering whether the glimpses of Bucky he catches are authentic, or an attempt to be the person Steve wants him to be. 

“I started from a very different place to James, in some ways. The only foundation I had to build on was the person they’d trained me to be. They took me too young and trained me too completely for there to be a ‘real’ Natasha that I was trying to return to. But I’d lived a life as her, so at least there was continuity.”  
She can see from his expression that she was right about his concerns, and knows that now is the time to be upfront, not to pull her punches.

“His time as the Soldier is so fragmented, I don’t know if it means the conditioning will be stronger or easier to break through than mine was. And there’s damage there that I never had to contend with, thanks to the memory wipes. I wasn’t a person when they took me, but I was something complete. I don’t know if it’ll work in James’ favor, that he was someone before. It could give him a base, if he lets it, I think. But you’ll have to be careful there, Steve. If he feels too much pressure from you to be Bucky Barnes, it will scare him off.”

Again, they fall silent, the three of them lost in their own thoughts as they sit on the huge bed and avoid eye contact. Eventually, she looks directly at Steve.

There’s something in his face that tells her he wants to ask her more, but that he’s holding back. She glances minutely toward Clint, and Steve shakes his head a fraction. Clint knows that something’s up between her and Steve, so she doesn’t hesitate, her hands flying to communicate that they need a moment alone as she speaks.

“You got anything to drink downstairs? I wouldn’t mind a beer if you have any.”

“There’s a few in the refrigerator. Clint, would you mind?” replies Steve.

“No problem.” Clint jumps up and leaves the room without questioning their obvious ploy, abandoning them to an increasingly tense silence.

As the door clicks gently shut, Natasha speaks into the silence. 

“Steve,” she says, “If there’s anything you want to ask me, anything at all - just ask.”

He looks up at her, and his expression shows every day of his near-century of life. He licks his lips, like he wants to say something, but he doesn’t. She gives him time. 

“Did you -” he starts, and looks down before trying again.

“Were you ever - no, this is ridiculous.” 

Another time it might be funny to see him this tongue-tied and awkward. Right now it’s just painful. He makes a final attempt.

“Feelings, and - stuff,” he finishes lamely.

Natasha smiles softly at the top of his head as comprehension dawns. 

“No ‘stuff’, Steve,” she answers gently. “I think I probably had some feelings, though. He was the first person to be kind to me, really kind, for as long as I could remember and he was so beautiful and-”

Her breath catches as the memory hits her. Honesty, she thinks, and braces herself before speaking again.

“I kissed him, Steve. Once. When he was James, before he started losing himself again.”

She can feel herself blushing, and hates the vulnerability as she forces herself to meet Steve’s eyes. He looks hurt, but calm.

“What happened?” he asks, so she tells him.

“He said no. He was so gentle about it. I was so embarrassed, and he just stroked my head and told me he didn’t mind. He said he was flattered, but it wouldn’t be right for either of us.”

She smiles at him, and it’s sincere. He nods, considering, and some of the tension melts from his shoulders. After a few moments’ silence, he speaks again.

“Thank you,” he says. “I just wondered if maybe there was more to why you kept it all from me. I think I understand, a little, and - I don’t want our friendship ruined. It hurt me, but you say thought you were doing the right thing. I believe that. I know trust isn’t easy for you, but - you’ve given me a lot today. Thank you.”

Natasha dips her head, slowly, and reaches out a hand in truce. Steve grasps it, and just holds tight for a few seconds. She thinks she understands a little, too. She paints Steve as this perfect image of a man, and it’s not fair to either of them. She compares herself to him, to his convictions and forthrightness, as a way to highlight her own failings, but it doesn’t do him justice either. If she wants to be a good friend to him - and she does, truly she does - then she has to allow him his flaws, his anger, his sense of powerlessness. 

They sit on the bed together, the tension easing by degrees, until they hear the front door open, and voices in the hallway. Sam’s shouting cheerfully at Clint, and then he’s calling up the stairs to Steve and Natasha, telling them to come down. Natasha rolls her eyes. Steve laughs, and then stands up, stretching like a lion, before heading to the door.

“I’ll just be a minute,” says Natasha. She needs time to gather her thoughts after the heavy discussions of the past hour.

She and Steve will be alright, she thinks. There are fractures in their friendship, but they’ll mend with time. She needs to be easier on herself. James is doing well, as far as she can tell. She smiles, and then goes downstairs.

-

The others are in the kitchen, and they’re being loud. Well, Sam and Clint are being loud, flinging open the doors to the little terrace at the back and ridiculing Steve for not owning a proper grill. Steve is unpacking bags of groceries with a growing look of alarm on his face as the food piles up on the granite countertop - steak and shrimp, eggplant and corn, plastic tubs of pre-made salad. James is nowhere to be seen.

Hoping to avoid the grilling debate, Natasha skirts around the edge of the room to the refrigerator, where she pulls out a bottle of wine. When she shuts the door, James is standing there, offering her a glass. She takes it from him, dipping her head in thanks. Neither of them speaks, and she turns away, wondering why it felt like a moment as she fishes in the drawer for a corkscrew, hands unusually clumsy.

An arm loops around her shoulders, and James pulls her tightly under his chin. She feels him exhale, and she cautiously brings her free hand around his middle. It only lasts an instant, but it’s enough. He remembers her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh lord, i don't know what to say about this chapter. i wrote it about 12 times, so. 
> 
> if you made it to the end you're a trooper. if you made it to the end wondering "what on earth was any of that about?" please let me know, because i've written and rewritten so many times that i can't even tell where the holes are any more, and i'm concerned there's a lot going on in my head that's not apparent on the page.
> 
> apologies for the lack of music in this one - there will be more in the next section, i promise.
> 
> there's only Tony's arrival to go now, and then one chapter to tie everything up and check in with how Bucky's actually dealing with all of this!

**Author's Note:**

> thank you thank you thank you for sticking with me all the way through
> 
> comments mean the world to me, so if you liked it, if you've got questions, if you've got criticisms - please let me know
> 
> i'm also over on [ tumblr ](https://gracelesso.tumblr.com) if you're into that kind of thing


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